


Self-Indulgence

by stormcorona



Series: The Adventures in Antiquities [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, In-universe crossover, Jurassic Park - Freeform, self indulgent but you can't come for me because it's in the title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormcorona/pseuds/stormcorona
Summary: When Hermione brings home a magical lectern that allows someone to enter the world of a book placed on it, she and husband Severus indulge themselves in one of their favorite narratives. Written in the world of Antiquities.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Series: The Adventures in Antiquities [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934626
Comments: 16
Kudos: 109





	Self-Indulgence

**Author's Note:**

> We all need a little self-indulgence and fantasy right now. It's my birthday, and Antiquities just hit 1k kudos, so have a little present. 💚 Inspired by a certain phone game too lol!

Severus was reading when his wife came in. 

He did not, however, stay reading, especially not when he heard her rearranging furniture. Putting a sticking charm on a nearby piece of scratch paper to note his place, Severus closed the potions journal and turned around to see what Hermione was doing. 

She had just gotten home from work by the hour, and by the well-tailored suit that she wore, though--as always--she ditched the heels at the door. Just as he turned, she pulled what appeared to be a shrunken lectern out from her bag and placed it on the ground. The lectern returned to its regular size as she stepped back and turned to Severus. 

Even from across the room, Severus could practically smell the charms on the thing. He arched a brow at her. “A new toy?”

Hermione bobbed her head up and down happily, the curls that had strayed from her bun bouncing as she did so. “We’ve recovered this from the vacation mansion of a nineteen-twenties gangster. I thought it’d be perfect for us, and we need to test how the charms work anyway.” 

Curiosity piqued, Severus stood, rolling up onto his legs and moving around the divan to inspect the lectern. He tapped his fingers on the flat surface of its top, feeling the charmwork laid into the wood. “How much have you figured out about it?” 

“It works a bit like the Weasley Daydream product line,” Hermione explained, slipping beneath his arm and tucking herself at his side. He kissed her hair as he listened. “It’ll create an illusory reality out of whatever fictional media is placed on the lectern. Anyone who performs a certain spell will be pulled in and take a role within that media.” He snagged one of her hands, bringing both of theirs to rest on the lectern and letting himself stroke her fingers. “I’ve already determined that even if we die in the book, we won’t die in real life. This was meant for a rich mobster’s entertainment, not something deadly.” 

“But we will feel every horrible injury or sickness inflicted, I assume.” 

Hermione shrugged. “Probably.” 

“If we play muggles, will we have our magic?” 

Another shrug. “I haven’t got a clue. I expect we will, I think that was likely part of the fun, but… something to find out.” 

Severus hummed. As much as he hated to give the Weasley boys credit for anything, he did have to admit that he was not adverse to fantasy with his wife, though having an alternative to a Weasley product was always nice. “I assume you have a choice in mind, then?” 

She nodded again. “I might see if I can charm a movie to respond to it. There’s no reason that it shouldn’t work, as long as I get the inputs right. I was thinking a movie would be…” She paused chewing on her lip, and Severus slipped a fingerpad along her mouth to get her to stop. She rolled her eyes at him. “It’d be faster, plot-wise. I don’t know how the passage of time is going to work.” 

“My selection is… longer, time-wise,” Severus admitted. “Shall we start with yours?” 

Hermione looked up at him, nodding. “After dinner?” 

***

Severus returned to their shared reading room to find the lectern with a rectangular object on it, which was obscured by a piece of burgundy velvet. He turned to his beaming wife (his wife, his wife, his wife--how many times could he repeat that without it losing its charm?) and arched a brow at her. 

“A surprise!” she said. 

“I suspect this is because I might disapprove of your selection.” 

Hermione shrugged, looking absolutely unabashed. “Or maybe I wanted to give you a surprise.” 

Rolling his eyes and resigning himself to being thrust into a vast, unknown, and possibly dangerous false reality, Severus seated himself beside the lectern. “Alright. How does this work?” 

The entry and exit charms were easy enough, and after his dear wife had cast her charm (and threatened him that she’d pout for weeks if he didn’t follow) Severus sighed and faced down the lectern. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Hermione to know what he liked, it was that he didn’t trust Hermione to give them something easy or remotely safe. Apparently being raised on a war raised her tolerance of stressful situations, and now that she regularly traipsed around the most dangerous wizarding catacombs Britain had to offer… well, her threshold was high, that’s all he was saying. 

Readying his wand, Severus cast his charm. 

The lectern pulsed with light, and he felt himself being pulled towards it sort of like the oppressive rubber-stopper-in-a-flash feel of apparition, and then--

***

Severus opened his eyes to the interior of a--was he--was this--this was a bloody helicopter?

Across from him sat a middle aged gentleman in what looked like damn safari gear and a Hermione dressed similarly. Severus was glad to see that she had retained her usual appearance--he definitely had plans to snog her while in whatever story this was, and he didn’t want to snog someone else. 

She winked at him. Severus rolled his eyes and tried to suppress his smile. It did not work. 

Severus looked down at himself and was immediately appalled. What the fresh fuck was he wearing? His black shirt wasn’t even fucking buttoned, and what the hell kind of necklace was this? Why was he wearing a leather jacket when it was so bloody fucking hot? Why was the leather tailored like a suit? Why--

“There it is!” 

Severus followed the eager pointer finger of the elderly, be-caned man across from him, his eyes focusing on a tropical island. The entire thing looked like one big lump of moss, absolutely coated in trees, even the sheer rock cliffs that sprouted from crashing azure sea covered in some sort of vegetation. 

A tropical retreat? With a luxury helicopter? Maybe his wife had selected more kindly than he’d thought. Not that he was holding out hope. 

“Bad wind shears,” the elderly man explained as the copter took several tight canyons deeper into the island, before hovering above a nearly invisible platform. “We have to drop pretty fast, so hang on--because it can be just a little thrilling.” 

Hermione looked like she was trying to merge her way out of the glass to get to their destination sooner. There was no way she could be this excited about something munda---

The helicopter lurched under them, and Severus found himself suddenly the caretaker of the bland lawyer next to him as the man clutched tight to his arm in fear, fumbling for the seat belt. At least he was doing better than Hermione’s safari man, who--to the amusement of the elderly fellow--was tying his seatbelt together. 

Holy shit, that waterfall… 

Severus scarcely had time to take in the sudden influx of gorgeous jungle around him as he was practically carried by the enthusiastic elderly man and his amber-topped cane into a nearby set of RVs. He managed to get in back with his wife, who promptly climbed up onto the top of the RV’s cage, pulling him up with her. 

He partially obliged, standing up and clutching the cage’s bars. “Hermione, what--”

“Shh! You’ll see! And right now, my name is Ellie and you’re Ian!” 

Severus didn’t get a chance to retort as his attention was immediately drawn to a massive electric fence system. Hermione had to duck back into her seat so that the cars could fit through the small, double-door opening in the fence. Severus twisted around to watch as the heavy doors hissed shut behind them. 

And then Hermione was back up on the cage again, and Severus poked his head up beside her. Unfairly, it was him that nearly got smacked in the face with a massive leaf, which plastered to him--hooked on his nose, obviously--until his wife had the sense to remove it. 

“Look at how big it is!” Hermione whispered to him, inspecting the leaf with obvious glee. 

“Slow down! Stop stop stop!” came the voice of the elderly man from the RV behind them. 

As they slowed, Severus was struck with how warm and humid the place was. The copter had AC, and the wind off the waterfall had allowed for a decent cool to sweep over them. Their movement had given a nice breeze, but now that they were still, it was warm as--

“There!” Hermione cried, pointing. 

Severus turned and his jaw dropped. 

Coming from behind a copse of trees was by far the largest creature he had ever fucking seen. Its size was so large that for a moment, Severus couldn’t comprehend the sheer enormity of it--his brain simply stuck, trying to process the creature, how could it be so alive and so big, even as his eyes trailed upwards, past four elephantine legs, to a huge, sloping body, up the long, long, long, long neck… 

“Jurassic Park,” Severus realized dumbly. “We’re in _Jurassic Park._ We’re--”

Hermione jumped from the car. Without any conscious thought, Severus leaped to follow her, stumbling and tripping as his eyes refused to leave the sky-high skull of the brachiosaurus. 

“Um. It’s a dinosaur,” said the man who must be Alan Grant. 

Severus nodded. “It’s … it’s so big,” he agreed intelligently. 

“My dear Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, Dr. Malcolm…” Hammond threw his arms wide open, the amber of his cane sparkling in the light, “Welcome to Jurassic Park.” 

***

Hermione had always been a dinosaur kid. 

Always. It felt like something as innate to her as breathing. They were big, they were scaly, they were LOVELY. Perhaps that was why she felt so betrayed by the whole basilisk business. Basilisks? Bad. Dinosaurs? Excellent. 

She’d also noticed that Severus, despite his life being immensely lacking in muggle education as well as muggle educational public television, was practically glued to any dinosaur documentary that she managed to find on the little television set she’d charmed to work in their house. _Walking with Dinosaurs_ had him awake for days binging. He still watched it when he got sick. She also knew that he’d read _Jurassic Park,_ but she wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen the movie. From how long it’d taken, she supposed not. 

Well, there was no need to see the movie now. 

Like, okay, sure. There was some child trauma. There was that part where Ellie got half of a guy dumped on her. There was that part where all the dinosaurs got let loose and everyone had to run from a T. rex. The parts which had compromised the integrity of the park had already gone down and there was nothing she or Severus could do to prevent their little vacation from going to hell in a handbasket. And magic or no magic, they might all die to ruthless, destructive reptilian predators the likes of which no human had ever seen. 

But her husband, dressed like Ian Malcolm, fighting velociraptors? Although Hermione advocated no harm to dinosaurs, literally every single bit of her that could in any way experience sexual attraction was aggressively advocating for sweaty Severus with a shotgun. 

Brightest witch of her time. 

Severus was currently wandering between parasaurolophus, while Alan Grant babbled out dinosaur facts. Hermione, for her own part, was watching the nearby brachiosauruses rear up and eat leaves. She knew that these dinosaurs might not be accurate interpretations, but the lectern was geared to adhere to the worldbuilding presented in the piece of media it was using, not search the outside world for proper scientific accuracy. Also, fuck scientific accuracy when that brachiosaur had a thirty foot neck and Hermione was living her best life. Voldemort who?

As Hammond managed to finally herd Grant back towards the cars, Severus stumbled over to her. Clearly he was still high off dinosaur adrenaline. 

“We need to save the park,” he blurted. The words practically fell out of him. He hadn’t been this direct in asking for things since the time he drank boiling Liquid Luck to propose to her when they were already married. 

Hermione blinked at him. “Okay.” 

“No, no, think about it.” He gesticulated wildly. “We have to save the park. If we save the park we can see if we can re-enter and pick up where we left off. And THEN we can have free access to as many dinosaurs as we can convince Hammond to give us--”

“Severus, honey, I already agreed,” Hermione reminded him. 

“Oh,” he said, and nodded. “Right. Right! Okay.” 

Gently, Hermione raised a hand and took his elbow, escorting him back towards the RVs. “We’ll save the park,” she assured him, because certainly it couldn’t be any harder than keeping two dumbass teenage boys alive for an entire year of camping, right? “Remember that when the power comes back on, it’ll be running on auxiliary power. That means we’ll have limited time and need to conserve it.” 

His head bobbed up and down as Hermione herded him into the back seat of the RV. 

“I’m torn between catching Nedry out early and getting to shit myself to a live Tyrannosaurus,” Hermione commented to Severus as they packed back into the cars. 

“I’ve got an easy way to decide. _Lumos.”_ Severus held up his hand, and a gleaming light twinkled at his fingertip. He shook his hand, and it flickered out. 

Hermione tried not to smile too widely, but she still got the vibe that Severus felt threatened by how eager she was. She could tell because he looked both extremely turned on and extremely worried. 

“We’ll need something for the velociraptors.” 

“I have a plan for those.” Hermione smiled, trying not to appear too smug. She did have a plan. And it was an outstanding plan if she did say so herself. 

***

The sky split like a crisp cockroach in a pestilence potion and dumped its steaming tropical rain guts all over the cars. 

Severus wished he meant the guts a little more metaphorically, but it smelled like rotten meat. “What the hell is that scent? Was it here before the rain?” Squinting, he attempted to see anything in the little soda can that they called a tour car as rain waterfalled down the windows. They’d been on a little cliffside overlook next to an electric fence when they’d stopped because of the power malfunction, but it was hard to see now.

“Nope, the smell's new,” Hermione said, with a grin that made his own personal guts simultaneously try to run away and contort themselves into the sexiest position available for colons (which wasn't particularly sexy). Popping open her door, she stepped out into the torrential downpour. 

“Her--Ellie!” Severus hissed, following a moment later. He opened the door and was confronted with a wall of moisture, soaking him immediately, which did not improve once he stepped into the rain. Where the bloody fuck was his wife? He glanced around, and found her standing in the middle of the road in a duelling stance. One question answered. On to the next. Why did everything smell like--

Oh, fuck. 

The tyrannosaurus. 

Severus stared at the wall of muscle that was currently nosing at the other car. “That’s what smells like rotten meat,” he realized with a gut punch of adrenaline. 

“They’re scavengers!” Hermione informed him unhelpfully, yelling over the thunder rolling above them. 

The tyrannosaurus looked up at her shout, and Severus felt just as paralyzed as if it had been a basilisk. Severus had not before ever had difficulty describing sizes, but the thing about dinosaurs was that they were truly substantial. They were easily the size of dragons, and even more spectacular, they weren’t magical--they were just that big. To say dinosaurs were the size of buildings was offensive to dinosaurs, because buildings were simply not large or threatening enough to be compared to something like a dinosaur. Dinosaurs were big, yes, but they were also big in a way that triggered every single survival instinct in the most ancient parts of the human brain. Modern language simply didn't cover it. 

And this thing? Huge. Predatory. Covered in a pebbled scaly hide, with slender nostrils flaring with each steaming breath it took, and those reptilian eyes… yellow, piercing, looking at his _wife--_

“Over here, you antediluvian _scrote!”_ That massive head swivelled to Severus just as he finished realizing that he didn’t want the creature looking at his wife like she was a meal. And where the hell did ‘scrote’ come from? He hadn’t used muggle slang in years. 

The tyrannosaurus inhaled, and Severus shoved down the screaming of his brainstem. The piercing heat of his adrenaline clashed with the muggy oppression of the tropical storm, the whipping winds tearing at his hair and the all-encompassing layer of rain. Fuck this. He’d faced down deadlier reptiles. They were significantly smaller reptiles, sure, but… 

“Tom should’ve gotten a T. Rex,” Severus realized aloud. “Then we’d all be fucked.”

_“Bombarda!”_

Severus threw up a _protego_ just as the explosion slammed into the tyrannosaurus’ hide, staggering it backwards. He gaped at his wife, her hair pinned up in a bun but curls unsubdued by the literal deluge, pointing one hand at the fucking dinosaur, her face curled into a snarl. Severus spluttered. “You hurt her!” 

Hermoine turned, blinked at him, and laughed. “Severus, she’s fictional!” 

Oh. Right. Severus had forgotten about that because of his brainstem’s insistence that this threat was _very real and very present and we should be running remember what happened last time we pissed off a reptile?_

Well, in that case… 

He didn’t have his wand, but Severus still had practiced his combat spells without one. Severus stared down the yellow eyes of the tyrannosaurus as his pointer finger traced the shape of the spell in the air. His incantation was a perfectly pronounced yet quiet command beneath the howling wind.

_“Expulso maxima!”_

Blue right ripped from him and smashed into the tyrannosaurus, sending the terrific beast flying backwards into the electric fence. Severus could hear several people in the cars beside them scream, and over that and the wind, the creaking screeches of metal bending and giving. The dinosaur scrabbled at the ground, its huge claws tearing up troughs of dirt as it fought for balance. The fence, Severus realized, the fence was falling. Scrambling, he backed up as the pylons of the electric fence began to uproot and the wires popped from them with bangs.

With a wailing roar, the entire tyrannosaurus and most of the fence went over the cliff. Severus stared, panting, as he heard his wife’s cackling laughter. 

Breathless, he turned to her just in time for her to bury one hand in his hair, the other beneath his horrific leather jacket-thing, and a moment later his head was jerked down to crash into her lips. It took him a moment to compute, and then his arms were pulling her against him even as he withdrew from the kiss. She was staring up at him, grinning, her eyes and teeth flashing in the lightning of the storm, and she looked absolutely wild and beautiful. 

Severus was the total opposite. “Hermione, I feel like a drowned dog and everything still smells and tastes like dead cow.” 

“Yes, and you look like a fucking badass and you just blew up a tyrannosaurus rex,” she retorted, pulling on his drenched black shirt to bring him down into another kiss. With very little protest, Severus assented, kissing her back for a moment before Alan Grant stumbled from the other car yelling something about safety.

“Safety, that’s right,” Hermione said. “Safety and enough time for us to f--”

“Hermione,” Severus cut her off, his teacher instincts kicking in. “There are _children_ nearby.” 

***

Severus knew that letting Hermione go to turn the power back on alone was a bad fucking plan. Now there was a pack of velociraptors on the run and the tyrannosaurus was probably somewhere around here. 

He crept through the emptied halls of the resort, having already punted both children to the safety of the backup bunker while he looked for his wife. He wasn’t going to have any of their side characters die if he could prevent it, especially not if it meant he got to keep his precious park. 

Something clicked behind him. 

Severus whirled. Nothing. His lips pressed into a thin line. 

He had enough defensive spells on him that any wayward dinosaurs wouldn’t be able to get near him without a nasty shock, but it wouldn’t surprise him if the velociraptors knew that and were trying to find a way to fuck with him. 

Besides, all the spells in the world didn’t change the fact that having a pack of velociraptors, ferocious and intelligent hunters from prehistory, trying to hunt him was a wild thrill. 

Severus had never considered himself particularly brave. He felt fear all the time. He felt fear about socializing with people, losing people, and reptiles. (Even if he loved reptiles, and even some people.) He worked well despite his fears because he had enough occlumentic talent and sheer lack of fucks to give that he could push that fear down. 

But in a harmless situation like this, he did like to allow himself a little bit of adrenaline, just for fun. Maybe it was his wife rubbing off on him. Or maybe it was the fact that these were creatures from beyond the beginning of time, and he had never beheld something so beautiful or terrifying besides his wife, and the fear was part of the human experience of these predators. So, yes, he allowed himself some fear purely for the entertainment value. 

Severus carefully pushed open a door to the massive lobby of the resort, and was startled immediately by the shriek of a raptor and a scrabbling scaly form. The velociraptor launched itself through a window, the shattering glass nearly nicking him as Severus barely had time to duck behind the protection of the door, before the raptor vanished into the hallways beyond. 

It was running from something. 

_The T. rex?_ Severus thought to himself as he took a few quick strides out into the lobby, glancing around. The only T. rex he saw was the dead one--not as cool as Hermione’s entryway’s reptile skeleton, mind you--but that could change any moment--

The entire building shuddered around him, the skeleton bobbing and waggling. With a cloud of plaster and glass, the tyrannosaurus smashed its way into the lobby, skidding to a halt and roaring at something behind it. 

Severus stared between the tyrannosaurus’ huge clawed feet and saw… Hermione… riding on.. a velociraptor? 

They were standing on the wide white plaza outside the resort lobby. The raptor chittered and lunged towards the tyrannosaurus, which responded with the most tremendous roar Severus had ever felt reverberate through his frail mammalian ribcage and rupture his feeble modern human eardrums. The park’s banner fluttered down to lay across the skeleton tyrannosaurus’ torso like a MISS AMERICA sash.

“Severus! Over here!” he heard Hermione call out after the ringing in his ears stopped. 

Severus glanced at her, her velociraptor, and then up at the tyrannosaurus. It hissed out a breath that smelled of carrion and dirt at him, then limped away towards the back of the lobby, apparently not eager to challenge him after he threw it from a fucking cliff. Apparently his wife had done something similar, since it was backing down from a fight with her and her velociraptor. 

Keeping his eyes on it, Severus walked slowly towards Hermione, noting how the great predator’s eyes darted between him and his wife. Finally, he felt the sun’s rays fall onto him, and he was free of the building. 

He turned to Hermione. 

She was, indeed, riding on a velociraptor. The creature tilted its head at him, and blinked green-yellow eyes, chittering curiously. Its scales were grey, streaked with a blue-green and mossy brown. This velociraptor was bigger than the other ones, at least near as he could tell. They’d only shown themselves in flashes while they were stalking him. But this one, larger, definitely had his wife on its back, and she had conjured a makeshift bridle. 

“Hermione…” he breathed. “What… how the hell?” 

“I used a growth charm on Sally here!” Hermione said, like this explained everything. “She’s really fast.”

“But… how?”

“They’re theropods!” she exclaimed, patting the velociraptor’s side. “You know what those evolved into, right?” 

Severus blinked dumbly at her. He shook his head. 

Hermione leaned in smugly. “Birds,” she said with a grin. 

_The LeFay heritage,_ Severus realized with a theatrical widening of his eyes. It gave her the ability to talk to birds, and to command them. 

Hermione beamed at him. 

“Outstanding,” he said, grinning up at her. 

His wife winked at him, and then she held out her hand. “Come on, hop on. We’ve got a park to save.” 

The raptor settled onto her haunches, allowing Severus to climb on behind his wife. Wrapping his arms around Hermione, Severus tucked a kiss into the skin beneath her ear, and hugged her tight. The velociraptor stood, and after a moment, Severus was riding a velociraptor tamed by his wife. “Clever girl,” he whispered into her ear as they headed towards the bunker.

***

It took Hermione a moment to seat herself back fully into her body. She was in her library, on the couch beside Severus, across from the magical lectern. A glance at the clock confirmed that the time-saving charm was working--only a few moments had passed despite their extended stay within the magical fiction. She looked up at Severus, who was grinning at her like she’d only seen him do on the second time they’d gotten married. 

“Pleased with your saved park?” she asked, wiggling closer to him on the couch as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

He pressed a kiss onto her lips before nodding. “Ready for my choice?”

Hermione nodded. 

“Close your eyes. It’ll be a surprise to you, too.” He paused. “And… promise not to tell anyone.” 

Rolling her eyes, Hermione did as he asked. “As long as it’s not something weird.” 

“Oh, no.” There was a shuffling noise. “Let me put it this way: I’m going to try and stockpile as many marriages to you as I can, so that if you ever try and divorce me, you’ll have a billion layers of marriage to go through before it actually sticks. Follow whenever you’re ready.” 

“You absolute sweetheart--” But he was gone, she could hear him cast the charm beside her. With a sigh, Hermione nodded, adjusted her wand in her grasp, and cast the charm, all without opening her eyes. 

When she did, she was in a sun-filled sitting room, a book clasped in her hands. A few other women were around her, all reading or working on needlework. Alright, so sometime prior to industrialization… 

There was the sound of a nearby door opening, and a woman’s voice called shrilly, “Netherfield Park is let at last!” 

Hermione looked down to hide her smile. Of course Severus did. Her husband was a closet romantic through and through. But even with her Darcy secured, there was at least one side goal in need of achieving, Hermione decided, and began to plot how exactly she could poison a certain George Wickham.


End file.
